THE EFFECT OF WE THE FEST VIRTUAL EVENT TRANSFORMATION INTO REVISIT INTENTION

• Main Author: Alayya Ilmi, Ausy
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/57611
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted various industries. The events industries, in which its main product is mostly offline events, force the event businesses to adapt to a new model of their product—virtual events, as a form of innovation for its survival and development. Since virtual events were not common before the pandemic, this format is still rarely studied, specifically regarding the consumer’s revisit intention of the renowned offline entertainment event that shifts into online, the ‘We The Fest,’ Ismaya Group’s iconic annual summer festival—one of the biggest in Southeast Asia. In response to this situation, this research will be conducted with a primary purpose to assess the effect of virtual event attributes on overall visitor experience, which, in turn, affects satisfaction and loyalty towards We The Fest: Virtual Home Edition 2020. Two approaches are used in this study; a qualitative approach with indirect structured interviews was conducted to 141 respondents, and 270 respondents performed a quantitative approach with structured questionnaires. Both approaches were conducted to people who had previously joined a minimum of one We The Fest edition 1-6. For quantitative, We The Fest: Virtual Home Edition 2020 audiences included as the additional criteria. This research uses open coding, descriptive statistics, and PLS-SEM for data analysis in generating the data. As a result, this research can identify factors affecting virtual event experience and, eventually, revisit intention. The factors were based on virtual event attributes, including online consumer-to-consumer, effective communication, online content engagement, festival program, escape, togetherness, and the music. The result shows four virtual event attributes; online content engagement, festival program, escape, and the music, significantly influence the virtual event experience. Along with the festival value, it strongly affects the overall satisfaction and revisits intention. These findings contribute to the understanding of virtual events, supporting event organizers by providing insights on how to design and manage a virtual event in the future effectively.